Westland Scout 1/48 kit mangle/scratch/trash/bash

[TheBaron]

On 08/10/2021 at 23:19, hendie said:

Windows. Hate 'em.  I don't know why, but canopies give me more issues than any other component. Every build, every time. Hate 'em.

<Nods in vigorous agreement> 

 

On 08/10/2021 at 23:19, hendie said:

Since I was printing stuff anyway, I made a few greeble edits and printed another couple of engines.  There's slightly more detail on a few parts (all of which is damn near invisible at this scale) but the major addition is the engine supports at the front which I only spotted recently on some photos.

Beautiful.

Besides, we all knew the earlier one was just a prototype....

On 09/10/2021 at 08:57, Martian said:

Sadly, to date, I have had to refrain from visiting the USA in order to avoid a mass panic.

After that last incident at customs nobody is surprised Daddy M.....

 

 

[Martian]

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

<Nods in vigorous agreement> 

 

Beautiful.

Besides, we all knew the earlier one was just a prototype....

After that last incident at customs nobody is surprised Daddy M.....

 

 

[perdu]

To return to the topic of Nimbus colouring may I add that when I was building the Wasp I was told in no uncertain manner that Naval Helicopters would NOT have dirty burnt engines like 'other operator's' engines.

 

And indeed from looking at scores of photos it looks as if my correspondent is right.

 

I made my Wasp Nimbus with burnt on exhaust staining, but lo' naval ones have definitely been under the pusser's eye and usually have metal coloured jetpipes.

[perdu]

Oh by the way, remember discussing the roof colour?

 

Try this one for an accurate picture of wotitlookslike

Not dark blue huh?

[Andwil]

^ Kind of that lad to let the young lady play with his joystick (snurf!).

 

AW

[hendie]

evening folks. S'been a while since I haunted this thread. The work life balance thing has been a bit lopsided these last few weeks and it's only just started to level out these last few days.  I didn't touch the Scout for two weeks or more but managed to get back to the campfire in the last few days to start some more tweaking here and there.. All I really want is a quiet life but the Gods seem to have other ideas in mind for me - and me an atheist too!

 

The tail of woe ahead...  

I finally got around to smoothing off that second? third? fourth? coat of the yellow stuff and the tail started to look promising

 

 

... that is, until I checked my reference shots against the plastic in hand and realised that one of these is not like the other.  Nurse!  we have to amputate,

 

 

On the blue plastic one, the spine blended smoothly into the tail pylon (see two shots above) while in reality, there is a nice little bullet shape on the end of the tail, which then transitions into the pylon as this shot from the walkaround section shows.  If only I looked before I sanded.

 

 

Some hacksawing action later and we have a skin graft taking place. ('scuse the Nimbus graveyard)

 

 

I then promptly forgot to take a shot of the bullet shaping action, but have no fear as it eventually crops up later in this yarn.

Meanwhile, I went off and soldered up a vague impression of a tail rotor gearbox and assorted gubbinses

 

 

which, if things go according to plan, should live somewhere around here - but inside the pylon.  If you look closely you can see the bullet thing starting to take shape.

 

 

Did I say "go according to plan"?  I did, didn't I?

Obviously this was bound to happen as soon as I said that.  While drilling the pylon for the gearbox triad, the milliput decided to separate from the kit plastic.   Yes Gods, I hope you're having a wonderful day too.

 

 

undeterred by the crumbling of things around me, I carried on until the triad found a home.  These things always look a lot easier than they actually are.  Not only did the brass triad have to be parallel to the slope of the front of the tail pylon, it also had to aligned on the centerline of the longitudinal axis of the fuselage, then the gearbox sticky-out bit had to be horizontal as well.  Much cursing and mumbling was muttered while I fought with the brass three legged octopus trying to get it aligned in three axes.

 

 

Once I had enjoyed as much fun with the brass as I could stand it was time to do some remedial work on the pylon itself. 

For the cracks I pried the pylon open enough to slap in some cyano and hope for the best.  Then, why I chose not to use yet more milliput as a filler at the front of the pylon, I have no idea, and no good answer for. Then why I chose to use two part epoxy glue is even less clear and I can't even begin to explain why I thought it would make things easier.  I'm not even going to go into why I chose to use 60 minute setting stuff instead of the 5 minute version. I think my brain must have been a bit miced that day.

You can imagine the fun I had after I slapped it on, then watched it slowly ooze its way towards whichever way gravity was pointing. Eventually some sliver of sense oozed to the surface of my brain and I slapped some masking tape around it to make a pocket for the keeping in of the runny sticky gooey stuff. 

 

 

Sand, sand and more sand - but only after lots of file, file, filing - then when I thought I had it beaten I threw some primer on to immediately see the big crack still staring back at me like a mean cat.   To be fair, the buller also needed more work so Mr Dissolved Putty came to the rescue this time.  That means in this itty bitty tail section we have: Kit blue plastic, white styrene (various), some other kit grey plastic, milliput, cyano, two part epoxy, Mr Dissolved Putty, some solder and some brass.

Is that a record?  Or just plain stupid?

 

 

Anyone getting bored with this tail yet?  I know I am.

After some interminable amount of rework, rework, rework I think I got it to an acceptable condition. Despite spending half my life over the last few weeks on this one small area, it still looked really boring so I added some greeblies on the top of the pylon.  Accuracy took a back seat here and this is really just an impression of a tail pylon. 

Of course, while working on this back end I realized that Fujimi's ribs along the spine ended in the wrong place - and I had lost some detail to the file and sandpaper, therefore they had to be reinstated.  Fujimi's ribbing is very fine and the only way to make it look seamless and uniform would have been to remove it all and replace each and every one. No!

I compromised by cutting back the ribs until they were equal - top to bottom, port and starboard -  then reinstated the ribbing from that point rearwards. Until the paint goes on I won't know how acceptable that method is going to look.

 

 

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so bloody-minded or stubborn, otherwise I could have tossed this kit a while ago when I started to realize just how much work was in converting from a Wasp to a Scout.  By now, I just really wanted to be finished with this tail section so nothing for it but head down and steam on McDuff.

The horizontal stabilizer was a bit of a head scratcher until I remembered I had some "not quite good enough for a Whirlwind" rotor blades lying in the spares box.

Promising n'est pas?

 

 

and in the flick of the wrist we have this.  Sheet styrene for the end plates, drilled and glued with cyano and teensy resin rivets. I cyano'd two lengths of stainless wire to poke up from underneath in the hope that they help keep the stabilizer somewhere near stabilized.

 

 

I pondered whether to wait until the fuselage was painted before adding the stabilizer but then thought soddit and just went for it.  The wire tensioners however, will wait until after painting as I'm bound to destroy them in my usual ogre like handling.

 

 

The very last tail related thingy this episode was to add a couple of slivers of triangular rod underneath to pretend to be mounting brackets - and also provide some additional strength other than just the two pieces of wire that would otherwise be holding that plank in place.

 

 

Jings crivvens Boab. I think we're done with that tail at long last.

The more I work on this kit the more I realise just how much work is really needed if someone was going to make an accurate Scout (or even Wasp) from what is provided.  The canopy/windscreen is another prime example of missing the mark.  

If you take a look at the photo Bill posted above you'll see that there's a definite angle between the windscreen panes port and starboard. Fujimi ? Simple flat surface.  Then those prominent window seals?  I am trying my hardest to avoid having to 3D print more window seals. It worked great on the Whirlwind, but to be honest I just don't feel I want to put the effort into this one.  We'll see how things change in a week or two.

To keep things moving along I masked up the front windows.

 

 

I then got a bit carried away and start adding framing from styrene strip. The kit canopy provides only the merest suggestion of a frame and only if you squint really hard using very oblique lighting. It is no doubt very overscale but hopefully when it's painted it won't be so in your face.

 

 

The latest version of the Nimbii were painted up.  Original (too grubby) version at back and newer, less grubby, but still to be weathered Nimbii in the foreground.

 

 

Q:  How do you paint a very fine brass mesh without clogging the holes up?

A: Struggle with your brain and drink some coffee until your brain kicks into gear and you remember that you have some of that wonderful stuff that turns brass black. Ha!

Then it was a straightforward case of punching out a disc or two of the brass mesh, dipping it in the solution, then a quick rinse in water and there you have some fine black mesh - with no clogging.

I guess the other question is why?  Well I needed a 3mm diameter disc of black mesh for the sucker/blower motor

 

 

which can be seen here in this dry fit of assorted gubbinses on the transmission deck.

 

 

Wow. I'm glad that's over.  I think I've broken the back of this thing now.  The tail and the canopy were real mojo killers but now they are taken care of, I can start to think about adding a coat of primer to this airframe and see what's what.

 

[AdrianMF]

Sometimes models fight back! You seem to have powered through it though.

 

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the urge to draw googly eyes on the fully-masked windscreen? 👀

[Brandy]

It might have been a struggle, but sheer bloody-mindedness has prevailed and the resulting tail looks great.

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

Fanytastic update Alan. She really is starting to look the part!

 

4 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the urge to draw googly eyes on the fully-masked windscreen? 👀

 

No it's not just you...........

 

 

Took me close to 10 minutes to master the basic drawing tool to modify the picture. Can you imagine how long it is going to take for me to master Fusion!

 

Terry

[perdu]

But Terry, master it you did  👍

[heloman1]

Coming together nicely Alan...

 

Colin

[Bell209]

Keep it up, mate - it's worth it in the end! I almost binned mine a few times. She's taking shape nicely now.

[Brandy]

On 11/7/2021 at 7:33 PM, Terry1954 said:

Can you imagine how long it is going to take for me to master Fusion!

I just found this set of videos and it has been a real eureka moment - It really is simple! I have been going about it in entirely the wrong way!

 

https://www.youtube.com/c/ArnoldRowntreeTeachesFusion360/featured

 

He has a set of 16 short videos which you can follow and make the parts as he explains how. Good practice and very easy to understand!

 

Ian

 

 

[hendie]

A quick midweek update.

 

With the canopy framing in place it was a relatively simple job to mask up reading for priming

 

 

and only then as I was preparing for squirting primer did I realize I had missed the most enjoyable part of the build - adding greeblies!

 

Let the greeblification commence!

TO be honest I got so carried away that I forgot to take in progress shots,  but you've seen it all before. Starboard side lumps and bumps. And yes, I knocked the door pillar off several times while handling, as well as a few other bits.

 

 

Port side carbuncling.

 

 

The underbelly was a bit more challenging.  All I had were shots taken from the rear pointing forward, and shots from the nose pointing rearward. That made it a bit difficult to determine exact positions of the danglies and such, so most of this is just guesswork and hope.  There's more pipes and tubes hanging off the underside of this than a closetful of church organs.

 

 

There appears to be some form of rail attached to the underside so I used the smallest "I" beam I had available but after looking at this photo... 

 

 

I thought it was far too large so removed it and replaced it with this fuzzy assemblage of .03"x.03" square rod and a hand cut 1mm strip glued on top.  Other protuberances are a mix of styrene thingies, assorted brass tubes and rods, and finishing up with meng resin nuts and bolts

 

 

There are still another few warts and pimples to go on the underside but I took a slight detour and started making up the undercarriage.  Since this kit was originally a Wasp, there was absolutely nothing I could salvage in the undercarriage department - which to be honest, was probably a good thing.  It was easy enough to solder up some brass tubing to form two Tees.

 

 

which fit nicely in them thar holes and will form the basis of the undercarriage from which all else hangs.

 

 

Similarly, the tail skid was made up from some 0.8mm and some 0.5mm brass rod, with a couple of styrene scraps cyano's onto the back end of the skid.

 

 

it even ended up close to being symmetrical

 

 

The last major greeblie and one that caused the most consternation was this scoop thing on the nose.  Most shots of Scouts show this scoop, and many of them also have a box shaped ehhrrr... box sticking out the nose just above it, but the shots I have of 660 Squadron show versions with and without. However, from what I can tell, around '82 - '84 the box was not present.

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the printer I've been running off a bunch of parts. I figured after the success of the Whirlwind window rubbers that I couldn't really ignore them for this build. Getting dimensions proved a bit tricky, and the first set I printed were no good, but were useful in allowing me to determine which dimensions needed adjusting.  Another set are printing as I type and looking at this shot, I realise that I completely forgot about those two lower windows on the nose. Damn.  Also emerging from the magic slime are wheels, the connecting upstands between the upper and lower undercarriage rails, and a 1st attempt at the undercarriage shock absorber.

All things not going completely south, I should be in a position to slather primer on this by the weekend.

 

 

 

[k5054nz]

I love this.

 

Also I've saved the YouTube link as I keep trying to get into Fusion360.

[perdu]

13 hours ago, hendie said:

I realise that I completely forgot about those two lower windows on the nose. Damn. 

Alan the lower front windows are added from outside and have entirely different seal arrangement.

 

Bullet dodged.

Screwed on from outside over a seal rubber

So does this mean Hendie-seals will be coming to model shops near me as you are getting to grips with this new after market idea?

[Vlamgat9]

I wish the printed parts were available for purchase!

[Chewbacca]

Wow.  It's been a couple of months since I last caught up with this and I must say it's coming along beautifully.  The 3D printed parts are sublime - I only wish I'd had my printer when I did the Wasp rather than having to scratch build all of those parts.

 

With hindsight, I wish I'd had the nerve to get rid of all of the doors on mine rather than just the pilot's but I was nervous that it would all fall apart if I did.  I didn't think about cutting everything away and replacing the central strut with styrene.  And in answer to the question about 2 pages back, the Wasps did fly without doors most of the time both to extend endurance and make it easier to get out in event of ditching.  Once the clamshell flot bags inflated, it was impossible to open the rear doors and difficult to open the front.  But even with the doors off, a Wasp carrying 2 Mk 46 torpedoes had an endurance somewhat less than 15 minutes.

 

Great work - hopefully won't take me so long to catch up in future.

[TheBaron]

On 11/11/2021 at 19:10, hendie said:

All things not going completely south, I should be in a position to slather primer on this by the weekend.

Really looking forward to seeing how all those quality greeblies look under colour Alan. 👏

[hendie]

On 11/11/2021 at 8:10 PM, k5054nz said:

I love this.

 

Also I've saved the YouTube link as I keep trying to get into Fusion360.

 

thanks k5054nz.  I have to admit it is growing on me

 

On 11/12/2021 at 3:30 AM, perdu said:

Alan the lower front windows are added from outside and have entirely different seal arrangement.

 

Bullet dodged.

Screwed on from outside over a seal rubber

<snip>

So does this mean Hendie-seals will be coming to model shops near me as you are getting to grips with this new after market idea?

 

Sad to say Bill that I think they may become a feature in future builds as they're fairly easy to do and do have a large visual impact.

 

On 11/12/2021 at 4:50 PM, Vlamgat9 said:

I wish the printed parts were available for purchase!

 

Several folks have been asking the same thing - PM me and we can chat

 

On 11/13/2021 at 3:07 AM, Chewbacca said:

Wow.  It's been a couple of months since I last caught up with this and I must say it's coming along beautifully.  The 3D printed parts are sublime - I only wish I'd had my printer when I did the Wasp rather than having to scratch build all of those parts.

 

With hindsight, I wish I'd had the nerve to get rid of all of the doors on mine rather than just the pilot's but I was nervous that it would all fall apart if I did.  I didn't think about cutting everything away and replacing the central strut with styrene.  And in answer to the question about 2 pages back, the Wasps did fly without doors most of the time both to extend endurance and make it easier to get out in event of ditching.  Once the clamshell flot bags inflated, it was impossible to open the rear doors and difficult to open the front.  But even with the doors off, a Wasp carrying 2 Mk 46 torpedoes had an endurance somewhat less than 15 minutes.

 

Great work - hopefully won't take me so long to catch up in future.

 

The printer does add a whole new avenue for the modeler doesn't it?    I have to say though that I was really impressed with your build, especially the Nimbus - in fact the whole transmission deck.  I thought you did a great job especially considering what you had to start with.

 

On 11/13/2021 at 9:39 AM, TheBaron said:

Really looking forward to seeing how all those quality greeblies look under colour Alan. 👏

 

Look no further Tony.  Well maybe just a little bit further otherwise you won't see anything

 

One of the last greeblies to be fed to the Scout was the navigation light housing. That was  grown from a piece of the usual stuff

 

 

which was then filed to a roughly aerofoil shape and then the difficult bit began.  The housing has a small flange around the light - I guess to stop glare from distracting the driver. A thin (oversized) strip was glued around the aerofoil and when set, was trimmed back to something approaching the right size.

 

 

and then, in the blink of an eye, primer was spilled over the entire thing.

 

 

One of my biggest concerns on this build was getting the additions such as the new longitudinal ribs not to look way out of place. Once the primer was on I took a good look, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised at how unobtrusive they looked under paint.

Even the tail looked reasonable.  I knew I was never going to get it perfect, but once the final colors are on, I don't think these additions are going to look out of place at all.

 

 

likewise with the nose. Those rain strips (?) look fine.

 

 

Isn't it wonderful how a simple coat of paint can make so much difference. 

 

 

Without a doubt, the worst area on this is the rear windows, but after all this time I really couldn't face trying to do anything else with those. I'm hoping there will be enough visual goodies hanging around to pull the eyes away from that area.

 

 

With this new found mojo, come this morning I couldn't wait to get downstairs and star some more coloring in.

A fresh coat of dark green helps make it look even less Wasp'ish and a lot more Scout'ish

 

 

The green is doing a fine job of tying everything together and hiding all my little oopsies and bodges.

 

 

The green nosed beasty - but for how long?

 

 

Yup, I'm liking this.  

 

 

The tail join isn't perfect but I won't tell if you don't

 

 

With the green in place I headed off to do some Wapiti-ing while the paint dried a bit. Oh, I should probably mention I was using Mr Hobby Aqueous with same brand leveling thinner and the paint went on a dream.

After the Wapiti action I got back to this and decorated it with some of tamiya's finest and some yellow-tack, that didn't really have much tack. (The masking tape is pretty much holing the yellow tack in place here)

 

 

All I had in the way of black was Aqueous Tire Black so I mixed in some Mr Hobby grey to tone down the starkness of the black and it worked surprisingly well (for me). That gray splodge you see at the rear of the cabin isn't paint lift - well not from the Scout anyways.  It's paint peeling from the spongy stuff I used to stuff the cabin with. I must have been having a really good day as I even remembered to paint the horizontal stabilizer before I cleaned out the airbrush.

 

 

I love it when a plan comes together 

 

 

Mojo building dry fit. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm really looking forward to, or dreading having to add all the plumbing on the transmission deck.  It's not going to be the easiest job in the world.

Oh, gloss has been added by this point so it's all ready to start adding stickers at the next session - once I figure out which aircraft I'll be doing.

 

 

This was the first print of the undercarriage components. I decided after this that they needed a few tweaks, but thought I'd show them anyway.

 

 

The hole for the crossmember was a bit tight so I opened that up slightly to prevent it splitting.

 

 

and with the wheel and pivot box in place

 

 

This is the second printing. The through holes are still a bit on the tight side but with some gentle persuasion with a rat tail file they fit perfectly.

 

 

and to finish off, a close up of the wheel assembly.  Some clean up is still required.

 

 

After the last few weeks of life getting in the way, this weekend was a really nice break and it was good to get back into the modeling routine again. For a while there, this kit was a real drag, but I'm at the point now where that's all behind me and I am enjoying the work again, and looking forward to the next stages.

 

 

 

[perdu]

Looks amazing Alan, quietly saying wow already.

 

👍👌👍

[k5054nz]

Amazing. With each photo my smile was getting wider - she looks VERY Scoutish, bravo!

[Brandy]

She's starting to look very smart now, and those printed bits are gorgeous.

 

Hopefully this is the chopper that Giorgio was referring to in the wapititititi post. I'm sure you're not daft enough to be modelling whilst wearing your kilt......

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

The green and black have lifted this one to a new dimension. Very nice indeed.

 

And more 3D printed parts, luring me ever closer to that technology, certainly for components like that.

 

Terry

[Fritag]

15 hours ago, hendie said:

The green is doing a fine job of tying everything together and hiding all my little oopsies and bodges.

 

Hmm.

 

Seeing as we can't see any little oopsies and bodges, I for one am not inclined to believe there are any..... it's just hendie having us believe he's merely a mortal model maker (a suggestion I'm not having neither....)

 

15 hours ago, hendie said:

The tail join isn't perfect but I won't tell if you don't

 

Isn't it?  The green must be doing a fine job of hiding that from me 

 

Great update Alan.  Looking the biz even before stickering, plumbing, undercart etc. etc.